Poppy Seed Cake

The poppy seed cake was intended to be dessert for Christmas Eve lunch. Our family has a series of family meals on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. intended to accommodate my son and daughter-in-law, who have other commitments. We have lunch on Christmas Eve and read the Christmas story from St. Luke, The Night Before Christmas (during which the reader has to ham it up as much as humanly possible) and Beatrix Potter's A Tailor of Gloucester, when the reader, following the tradition of my father, has to read every piece of print in the book. "Frederick Warne and Company, copyright,  1911, copyright renewed, 1935," the reader solemnly intones.
At 5:00 we go to the family mass at Saint Margaret's Church, finally giving in to the reality that I could not stay awake for midnight mass. On Christmas Day, the yms and our friends come over for Christmas dinner about 4:00. 
This year we flew to London for our daughter's graduation from her Master's Program, and arrived  back on these shores on Sunday, suffering from a bad cold (my husband, Bob) and jet lag (the rest of us.) Monday was spent running around doing last minute errands, mailing packages that I hadn't managed to mail before we left for Britain and visiting the horse.
 On Monday night, I had intended to make the cake, as well as peeling the chestnuts for chestnut soup. The chestnut soup recipe failed to mention that peeling two and a half pounds of chestnuts could take upwards of two hours. After an hour of picking chestnuts out of the shell and stabbing myself at least once, I tottered off to bed.
Tuesday was Christmas Eve. I had to go to the Post Office and did so. I got back about 11:00 am bearing drinks from Starbucks for the assembled multitudes, and started making everything else that would go into Christmas Eve dinner. It was plain that there was no time to make a cake or the soup, no matter how simple it might be to peal chestnuts. Christmas Eve dinner was, by our entertaining standards, spartan. Just main course, two side dishes and that was it. No dessert, no soup, no nothing. Everyone survived with good humor intact. At 4:15 the yms went out the door on their way to church. Bob, my daughter and I stayed home.
So Christmas Eve evening, I made the poppy seed cake and peeled the rest of the chestnuts. The only caveat I have about poppy seed cake is, these are ground poppy seeds. I took two 2.5 ounce jars of unground poppy seeds and tossed them into the Cuisinart. I probably netted upwards of three-quarters of a cup of ground poppy seeds. So I would say, buzz one jar of poppy seeds, measure them and figure how much more you need to get to half a cup. Also, you have to soak the poppy seeds for thirty minutes. As you do that, it's a good time to put the butter on the top of the stove so it softens. (Put it on a saucer. You don't want it to melt.)
This is a great cake. I ended up serving it at Christmas dinner, for those who declined Christmas pudding, or who decided they needed two desserts. The icing is a triumph. It reminded me of the icing on Joanne Bakers'
birthday cakes, sold in the 1950s in Great Barrington, Ma., Joanne's cakes were white with pink, yellow and blue roses on them. There was also a dove that rested near the roses. This icing is smooth, not grainy, fluffy, and altogether icing-like. And just think, home made!

Poppy Seed Cake

Cake
1/2 cup ground poppy seeds (grind 1/4 cup of poppy seeds in the Cuisinart. You will probably have enough.)
1 1/2 cups milk
2/3 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
4 egg whites
Frosting
4 1/2 tablespoons cake flour
1 cup milk
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. To prepare cake, combine the ground poppy seeds and milk and let stand thirty minutes. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the lemon extract and vanilla.  
3. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder and fold alternately with the milk mixture into the batter.
4. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry and fold into the mixture. Turn into three greased and floured eight-inch layer pans and bake about twenty minutes or until done. (In my oven it's always longer.)
5. Cool on a rack.
6. Meanswhile prepare frosting by blending the flour and milk together in a small saucepan. Heat, stirring, until thick. Cook two minutes until very thick. (Very thick is like icing in a can.)
7. Cream the butter, in a bowl. Gradually beat in the sugar until mixture is very light and fluffy. Gradually add cooled flour mixture and the vanilla. Beat five minutes longer. Use  to fill and frost the layers. Decorate with the walnuts.
Makes one dozen servings.

Angel Food Cake

I must have, at some point in my life, made angel food cake. We have an angel food cake pan, after all. I am not a person given to buying kitchen equipment because I might need it sometime in the far distant future. Usually I buy stuff after I have muddled along for a while and then decide, yes, I really do need whatever it might be. So, obviously, I made angel food cake. The index and my scrawled dates next to the recipe tells me, yes, I made Prize Angel Food Cake from the Northeast on January 20, 1995. It was not a memorable occasion.
I made this angel food cake because my son and daughter-in-law were coming to dinner. I wanted something easy. If you have an electric mixer, and who does not in these days, angel food cake is easy. You beat, mix, pour and bake. No standing over a hot stove stirring some concoction that does not want to thicken.  You do need a big bowl. Twelve egg whites beaten takes up a lot of space.
I can see why they call it angel food cake. In the bowl, the batter is pure white, as a child might imagine the robes of angels. It is also very fluffy, of course, with all those egg whites.
Readers might be puzzled by the picture. The directions for angel food cake tell the cook to stick the neck of the cake pan into a bottle, and let the cake cool upside down. This is a picture of my angel food cake cooling over the neck of a bottle. 
There is very little about the angel food cake to be intimidated by. One thing I suggest, is breaking your egg whites into a small bowl and adding them one at a time to the large bowl you plan to beat them in. That way, if your eleventh egg white gets some yolk in it, you have not contaminated an entire dozen eggs.
The recipe says not to grease the pan. This is important. The batter, as it rises, clings to the side of the pan and therefore stays up.
Wikipedia says angel food cakes are usually not served frosted, but with some kind of a sauce poured over. Bob, when informed that there was no frosting, went rummaging in indignation through the jams and jellies collection and heated up ginger marmalade to pour over the cake. That worked, and so would any other jam that you prefer.

Angel Food Cake

1 1/3 cups sugar, sifted twice
1 cup sifted cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups egg whites, (about 12 whites)
1 1/4 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Add one-third cup of the sifted sugar to the cake flour. Add the salt and sift the mixture together three times.
3. Beat the egg whites, preferably with a wire whisk (ahem, unless you are some sort of off the grid purist, use a hand mixer.), until they are foamy and add the cream of tartar. Continue beating until whites are stiff but not dry. Gradually beat in the remaining sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Fold in the vanilla and almond extract. Sift approximately one-quarter cup of the sugar and flour mixture over the batter. Fold in with a rubber spatula. Continue adding the sugar and flour mixture, folding in after each addition.
4. Pour the batter into an ungreased nine-inch tube pan. Bake about fouty-five minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly touched. Immediately turn the pan upside down, suspending tube part over the neck of a funnel or bottle. Let cake stand in the pan until cold, about one and one half hours. Makes enough cake to serve ten.